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Sociolinguistics from the Periphery "presents a fascinating book about change: shifting political, economic and cultural conditions; ephemeral, sometimes even seasonal, multilingualism; and altered imaginaries for minority and indigenous languages and their users."

The topic of variation in language has received considerable attention inthe field of general linguistics in recent years. This includes research onlinguistic micro-variation that is dependent on fine distinctions in syntaxand information structure. However, relatively little work has been done onhow this variation is acquired. This book focuses on how different types ofvariation are expressed in the input and how this is acquired by youngchildren. The collection of papers includes studies of the acquisition ofvariation in a number of different languages, including English, German,Greek, Italian, Korean, Norwegian, Swiss German, Ukrainian, and AmericanSign Language. Different kinds of linguistic variation are considered,ranging from pure word order variation to optionally doubly filled COMPsand the resolution of scopal ambiguities. In addition, papers in the volumedeal with the extreme case of variation found in bilingual acquisition.